How to turn your Mac on or off

You can turn on your Mac by pressing the power button. Some Mac notebooks also turn on when you open them or connect them to power. Choose Shut Down in the Apple menu to turn your Mac off.

Turn on (start up) your Mac

Press the power button, which is usually marked .

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) and later, and MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) and later: The power button is next to the Touch Bar and integrated with the Touch ID sensor. Press Touch ID (power button) to turn on your Mac.

Other Mac notebooks: The power button is a key in the top corner of the keyboard, or a circular button next to the keyboard.

Mac desktop computers: The power button is a circular button on the back of the computer.

Turn off (shut down) your Mac

The best way to shut down your Mac is to choose Shut Down from the Apple () menu.

Just as your Mac follows a startup process after it turns on, it follows a shutdown process before it turns off. That process includes automatically quitting all open apps and logging out of your macOS user account.

If you can't shut down your Mac because it isn't responding, you can force it to turn off without shutting down. Hold down the power button until your Mac turns off.

Use this method only when you can't shut down. You'll lose any unsaved changes to documents that you have open.

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If your Mac is turned on, briefly pressing the power button wakes your Mac or puts it to sleep. This shortcut requires OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later and is equivalent to choosing Sleep from the Apple menu. Note that this behavior is different on MacBook Pro models with Touch ID.

If you use VoiceOver, be aware that there is no audible cue when your Mac goes to sleep.